Mickey 17 ending explained: Your biggest questions answered

Mickey 17, the latest movie from Bong Joon Ho, is out now – and the follow-up to the director's Oscar-winning movie Parasite doesn't disappoint. The sci-fi movie stars Robert Pattinson as Mickey, an 'expendable' employee who lives in a human colony on the planet Niflheim under the leadership of the charismatic, tyrannical politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) – and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), who's pulling a few of the strings behind the scenes.

Mickey has to undertake deadly missions to further human expansion on Niflheim. When he dies, he's 'reprinted', which means a new, identical version of him is created using a human printer. The version of Mickey we meet is number 17, but things start to get a little complicated when number 18 is printed while 17 is still alive…

If you've got any questions about the Mickey 17 ending, we get into everything you need to know below, but be warned: there are major Mickey 17 spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution if you don't want to know what happens.

Mickey 17 ending explained

After the skirmish at the talk show, the baby Creeper is captured and sent to the science department, and Mickey 17, Mickey 18, and Mickey's girlfriend Nasha are imprisoned. They escape after an altercation with Mickey's friend Timo (who's trying to kill Mickey on behalf of the debt collector looking for the pair of them back on Earth), but are caught again by a group of agents. Brought before Kenneth Marshall, they try to explain that the Creepers (the species native to Niflheim) saved Mickey and are nothing to fear. He doesn't listen and Nasha explodes at him, which culminates in Marshall dangling the baby Creeper over the incinerator in a fit of rage. He forces Nasha to take the end of the rope attached to the baby and hold it in her mouth to stop it falling into the fire below.

Hearing the baby's anguished cries, a large group of Creepers have gathered outside the human's base, and Marshall plans to kill them all with poisonous gas. Before that, though, Marshall's sauce-obsessed wife Ylfa sends the Mickeys on a mission to collect as many Creeper tails as they can to go into her latest condiment. The pair are kitted out in matching suits attached to a detonator with two buttons: the first version of Mickey to collect 100 tails wins, and the loser gets blown up. The idea is that the Creepers will cry out so much that it'll attract all the creatures to the site, so the gas can wipe out the entire population.

Before the Mickeys head out into the snow, one of the scientists gives them a translation prototype they've been working on to communicate with the Creepers. Mickey 17 uses it to warn the mother Creeper about Marshall's plan, but she's angry at him because of the baby who died during the earlier skirmish and doesn't want to listen to him. She says the Creepers are able to let out a cry that will cause humans to explode, but she won't do it if the other baby is returned to her safely – and if a human is killed to even the score.

Mickey 17 tries to sign a message to Nasha back at the base by miming the letter C and the number 3 at her. She understands what this means immediately: C3 was one of the sex positions from the diagram earlier in the movie, which was named 'bring the baby'. Nasha gets Ylfa in a headlock and demands a safe exit from the base with the baby.

Marshall, meanwhile, drives out into the snow to give a speech before he releases the deadly gas. The Creepers start to swarm together and hide the mother from him, and a fight breaks out amidst the chaos. Mickey 18 takes on Marshall, while 17 meets Nasha and returns the baby to its mother. 18 disarms Marshall and presses the '18' button on the detonator, killing them both.

Six months later, Nasha is leading a ceremony to commemorate the abolition of human printing on Niflheim. We find out that after Marshall's death, Ylfa was taken to the psych ward and is rumored to have taken her own life. The rest of the characters are sent to jail, but Timo manages to get out on parole. The loan shark's associate manages to track him down, but there's a fight and Timo pushes him into the incinerator. He's put on trial, but gets off on self-defence.

Nasha is now a member of the Assembly after running in the elections after Marshall's death, and Mickey is still communicating with the Creepers now that the science team has perfected their translation device. While wandering around the base in the middle of the night, he seemingly encounters Ylfa making a reprint of Marshall, but that was just a bad dream. The movie ends with Mickey being given the honor of blowing up the human printer during the ceremony – and the reveal that he's now just known by his full name, Mickey Barnes.

What happens to Mickey 17?

Mickey 17 survives the movie, despite the fact that he's a multiple. That's because Mickey 18 sacrifices himself at the end of the film, meaning there's only one version of Mickey left. After 18 kills Marshall in the process, the colony's assembly votes to abolish human printing anyway, so 17 remains the only and final version of Mickey. He manages to continue his evasion of the loan shark he was trying to escape on Earth, too, as Timo kills the associate who's sent to Niflheim. He's still with Nasha and no longer an expendable, so things are looking pretty good for Mickey 17. By the end of the movie, though, he's not Mickey 17, he's just Mickey Barnes.

What happens to Mickey 18?

After trying to kill Mickey 17 earlier in the movie to ensure he's the only Mickey left standing, Mickey 18 ends up sacrificing himself to save 17 by the end of the film – and to take down Marshall in the process. While the Mickeys are trying to help the Creepers and stop them being killed by Marshall's poisonous gas, 18 attacks Marshall and manages to disarm him. He activates the button on Marshall's detonator that's attached to his suit, which blows up the pair of them in the process.

What happens to Kenneth Marshall? Does he get reprinted?

Failed politician and wannabe space colony cult leader Kenneth Marshall dies in the movie's final act in a fight with Mickey 18. Mickey manages to disarm him and the pair both die when 18 detonates his own suit using the button on Marshall's controller. His wife Ylfa is admitted to the base's psych ward, but we do see the pair again briefly in a mysterious scene right at the end of the movie.

Mickey 17 is wandering around the base in the middle of the night and finds Ylfa in the printing room, seemingly making a new copy of her husband. That ends up just being a nightmare, though, expressing Mickey's (understandable) anxieties with the whole printing process. He blows up the printer right at the end of the movie, just to be on the safe side.

Mickey 17 is out now in theaters. For more, check out our Mickey 17 review, or fill out your watchlist with this year's best upcoming movies with our guide to 2025's biggest movie release dates.